Blue Dragon Plus by Ignition - Review

I mentioned in my last post that a review of Blue Dragon Plus would be coming up, and it's about that time. Unfortunately, I got the game 2-3 days after I expected it to get here, so I took a little extra time to work through it some more.

The first thing I will say is this: It was not what I expected it to be. It was better, most definitely. I was expecting a cookie cutter RPG, sort of like Fire Emblem, fun, but overdone. Well, I was quite surprised when it turned out quite different. Read on for more. ^^





First off, I want to say that I like the packaging. I know it's insignificant, but I just have to mention that the simple, streamlined design is quite attractive.

Of course, the important part is the gameplay, which is actually real time. This isn't my first RTS, but it was pretty innovative in the way things were implemented. I started the game off with a tutorial stage, which was quite nice. Easy to understand and it taught me what I needed to know.


You could say that this is a very fast paced game. There are medals that you pick up automatically when one of your units simply walks over it, so no need to stop and "loot." Also, there are treasure chests in almost all stages. In order to pick these up you just have to click a unit, and click the chest. That unit will automatically go up to it and take the loot. Of course, you need to be careful that the unit doesn't get ambushed on the way to the chest. ^^



One of the things that bugged me a bit were some of the drawn out conversations. While they were rather informative, they were a bit long-winded at times, which seems to oppose the idea that this game is aimed toward children. Children = short attention span, thus, long conversations = bad. Of course, that's just a small complaint. I really loved that I got a healer relatively early on in the game, and she AoE heals at that! What game lets you have an AoE healer after the first few battles!? None that I know of, except this one. ^^

The graphics were pretty nice too, cut-scenes made use of both screens, and quality was the best you could expect a DS to handle. Pretty much the entire game is controlled using a stylus and your D-pad, so get used to using that stylus if you aren't already. I found it sort of a pain that I had to constantly touch the screen with a stylus in order for the text to speed up. I didn't want to skip it altogether, but it was far to slow, with no setting (that I know of) to speed it up.



Another pet peeve for me were the menus. They seemed to be made up of *too* many gradient like "buttons," most of which weren't really buttons. I had to figure out if there was more than one button on multiple menus. Definitely could have used a better layout.

Though most of the menus had a pretty bad design, there was one VERY cool redeeming feature, and that was detailed stats of the characters. Far too many RPGs and RTSs don't let you see detailed stats, but this game had it all, far too many to list, but really anything you would need in order to see each of the unit's strengths and weaknesses.

All of my complaints are quite minimal in importance though, because the game is very playable, and very fun. I'm definitely planning to finish it, just a little at a time due to time restraints. Overall, I would definitely recommend this game to any RPGers or RTSers who don't mind playing on a DS, as well as anyone interested in fast-paced game play. It keeps you on your toes, thinking about what to do in split second timing. At the very least, it's good for your brain. ^^

Lastly, just for your edification, there has been an anime made for the Blue Dragon series, 2 seasons in fact. Supposedly part of the first season aired on Cartoon Network, but got canceled soon thereafter. There was also a manga made for the series which ran for 4 volumes. Interestingly, the art for the manga was done by Takeshi Obata, who, as some of you may recall, was the artist for Death Note, Bakuman, and Hikaru no Go.

For anyone interested, I suggest Amazon.com if you want to buy Blue Dragon Plus.

Thanks to RocketXL for allowing me to review Blue Dragon Plus, I'm willing to review any other DS, Wii, or computer games that will be coming out. ^^

(Read the rest of this post here.)

Update and J-Music

Above is "Last Song", a nice slower song from my favorite Japanese artist, Gackt.

Hello all, I know it's been quite a long time since my last update; I've been very busy with school. I've been doing English 1A, History 17, PHP programming, and an Internet class. This post is actually, in part, for the internet class, as part of what the instructor wants the class to do. My semester will be ending relatively soon, so I will most definitely take advantage of that and post quite a bit more.

Anyway, this post, along with another few posts will cover J-Music (J-Music stands for "Japanese-Music" for those of you who might not know). They will also, all have youtube video links. It will be a little bit each day since I don't have the time to sit down and compile large posts just yet. I hope these posts can expose J-Music to Western culture a bit more, maybe help break down some of the ideas that people hold about Japan, for instance, the idea that Japan is entirely traditional and doesn't have modern music and styles. I've heard that one out of many people before. ^^;


First, I'll start off with some J-Rock. There are many artists that are known quite well in America already, but there are many more which have almost no fan basis in America. I'll include a bit of both.

Another moderately slow song from Gackt, who, while being classified as mainly J-Rock, kind of isn't. He has rockish sounding songs, but many of his songs are actually slower. Another interesting thing to note, J-Rock could be metal, screamo, slower rock, just about anything that falls under rock, and is by a Japanese band. As such, some harder rock will be coming after Gackt. ^^

"Rain" by Gackt.


By the way, I've been trying to take some good figure photos for reviews, but I just can't seem to get good ones with a point and shoot camera, so I'll hopefully be getting a DSLR soon. *Crosses fingers for Christmas* xD

This is the last one I'll post from Gackt, and is also a faster song, more of what you might expect to hear when you think of "J-Rock". For those who may be interested, there are many sources of information about Japanese artists on the internet (along with artists of every other nationality), so I will post a link to some wikipedia information for each of them.

"Returner (Yami no Shuuen)" by Gackt.


Now for some harder rock. It might be a good idea for me to tell you all a bit about "Visual Kei" (lit. Visual Style in english.) Some people like this style, other hate it, but quite a lot of the harder J-Rock comes from bands that are Visual Kei (which can also be shortened to "Visu", something that I will be doing from now on.) One of the things that many people hate about Visu is the fact that many of the members in different bands look at least slightly androgynous. If people don't like this then that's fine, but there is no reason to judge how good a band is based upon their looks, even though Visu is based upon looks. xD

Here is a couple of videos from what is probably one of the most well known Visu bands, especially in America, Dir en Grey. They have had many different looks and styles of music over the years, but that helps to make them quite a versatile band.

Let me warn you now, Dir en grey does have screamo sounding songs, and some of the videos I link may not be entirely appropriate for younger audiences. :p

"Saku" by Dir en grey


Die en grey is actually a band that's been around for a while, they has their classic Visu days:

"Akuro no Oka" by Dir en grey


And, finally, my favorite song and music video by Dir en grey. This video is, to say the least, very crazy, most definitely not appropriate in many workplaces, and may be hated by many people. But I love it. ^^

"Obscure" by Dir an grey


Two or three more artists left for this post. Next will be a group called Maximum the Hormone, definitely among my favorites.

This first song is the second opening song for the anime "Death Note".

What's Up People! by Maximum the Hormone.


One of my favorite songs.

"Koi no Mega Lover" by Maximum the Hormone


I'll just post one up from this next band, the GazettE. I am only going to post one up for two reasons, one, it's their best song, and two, it's the only song of theirs that immediately comes to mind as one of my favorites. Not that their other songs are no good, they actually have many good songs, but none are nearly as good as this one, at least in my opinion.



Since I'm now running a bit short on time, this will be the last band for this post, more to come later. UVERworld, a band that might be known in America due to the use of one fo their songs in the anime "Bleach". That song is this next one.

"D-Technolife" by UVERworld.


UVERworld is a bit more of a softer rock band, not so metal sounding, but I love all types of music, hopefully everyone else might take this sort of point of view too. ^^

"Chance!" by UVERworld.


Last song of this post, it's a moderately slower song by UVERworld, nice to listen to. :p

"Kimi no Suki na uta" by UVERworld.


Well, I hope everyone enjoyed this post, and maybe became interested in some new bands, there are many more to come, and my posts will never be meant to be comprehensive, as there are so very many different bands out there.

(Read the rest of this post here.)

Fullmetal Alchemist - New TV Series

Awesome news: Fullmetal Alchemist is getting another TV series!

All that's known so far is that it has been confirmed. More detail is available over at Anime News Network, info found via dannychoo.com member news items, posted by member marl0.

(Read the rest of this post here.)

WonFes 08

Unfortunately I live in the US so I wasn't able to attend Wonder Festival this year, but many others were.

Those interested in WonFes coverage can check out Danny's post. He also has links to more coverage on other sites in his post.

Pic is of Nendoroids at WonFes, via dannychoo.com. Original source at Ota-Suke

(Read the rest of this post here.)

Comic-Con 08

As I mentioned before, I will be attending Comic-Con for 2 days this year, I'll cover it in a post or two afterwards. Is anyone else going to Comic-Con? If so then drop me a line, maybe we can meet up. :p

For those of you that don't know what Comic-Con is I will explain a bit; the central subject of the convention is art, in (almost) any form. You can find a whole lot of American comics and animation there, along with Japanese manga and anime. There are also some games and a good amount of figures/statues there. It's held July 24-27 with a preview night Wednesday, at the San Diego convention center which happens to be a VERY large convention center.

Some "guides" to Comic-Con can be found at Anime News Network, here, and here.

I should be bringing back some mang, figures and maybe some anime, pictures of those will be in my coverage posts. ^^

(Read the rest of this post here.)

Tokyo Stormtrooper (Danny Choo) - Rick Trooper

Japan blogger Danny Choo, also known from time to time as the "Tokyo Stormtrooper", has recently finished the filming of "Rick Trooper".

His latest stormtrooper dance video rickrolls us all. Filmed by Hector Garcia of Kirainet.com.



I really love Danny's stormtrooper videos, excellent fun. :p

Source of picture and info is here at Danny's blog.

(Read the rest of this post here.)

iPhone production costs are estimated

A research firm called iSuppli has dissected an iPhone 3G and estimated it's production cost to be $174.33 per phone.

The cost to produce the iPhone 3G has been revealed to be $52 less than than the production cost of the previous iPhone, as such it has been estimated that Apple has about a 55% profit margin on iPhones sold through AT&T before accounting for marketing and software. While I've heard a few complaints from people about this kind of profit margin, I don't see any problem with it. Apple has created a device that is quite advanced in the US market, many people love the phone, and Apple have most definitely put a lot of work into designing it. I think they deserve that kind of profit.

Source for this is at maximumpc.com, original source at techtree.com

(Read the rest of this post here.)

"Daruma otoshi" high-rise demolition method

A Japanese construction company called Kaijima Corporation is in the process of demolishing two high-rise buildings in Tokyo:



They are using an innovative, original method of demolition, called "Daruma otoshi". This new method of theirs is inspired by the traditional Japanese game of the same name:



Personally I find this quite interesting, this method involves a lot less mess and general disturbance to neighboring buildings, but on the other hand it requires more time, physical labor, and most likely more money than other methods in the long run. I would much prefer it if this method were adopted everywhere in the world, but I doubt that will happen any time soon. Unfortunately though, this method was most likely only used because they didn't have any way to access the top levels of the building with a large crane and the building was probably too close to any other buildings to blow it up, this is an assumption of course, but it's highly likely that it's the case.

Original source at PinkTentacle, discovered through Kirainet

(Read the rest of this post here.)